


Where We Love

by mydogwatson



Series: DIALOGUES 2 [5]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Life well lived at last, M/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-29
Updated: 2014-04-29
Packaged: 2018-01-21 07:15:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1542224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mydogwatson/pseuds/mydogwatson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life together after all those years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where We Love

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, folks, it's like this. Seems that some of you are really looking forward to the reunion. Problem is, the narrative structure of this arc [they are apart in every story, each story happens during a phone call, and there is a time jump between each part] did not really allow for an actual reunion. As a reader I don't care so much for technical details like that; as a writer, I do. So a compromise. This was going to be the last story in this series. But now I am doing a sixth piece that will show the actual reunion as a sort of P.S. It will be out of the narrative time line, but as both a reader and a writer, I can live with that. In the meantime, I do like this piece and hope you do as well. The postscript will be up in a day or two. Thanks!

Where we love is home,  
Home that our feet may leave,  
but not our hearts.

-Oliver Wendell Holmes

 

John sat for a long time in the otherwise deserted Family Lounge. The doctor came in and explained things that really didn’t need to be explained. John, ever polite, shook her hand and thanked the woman.

Once he was alone again, he finally reached for his phone and sent a text to Harry, hoping that she wouldn’t be too drunk to read and comprehend it. Then he sent a text to Sherlock.

//Mum passed quietly. Going back to the house now. Talk later.//

By the time he’d reached the pavement and waved down a taxi, there was already a response. Not from Harry, of course.

//So sorry, John. I will call. Love you. SH//

John almost smiled as he climbed into the cab. Sherlock had very much wanted to come back to London and then to Kilburn with him, but the case in Edinburgh was important. And they had not realised just how dire the situation with his mother was until John actually arrived. Which was how she had wanted it, of course. His mother always believed that his work with Sherlock was important. “For one thing,” she frequently said, “that silly man is all at sixes and sevens without you there.”

He’d never told Sherlock that Mum called him a silly man.

As the taxi cruised through the quiet late-evening streets, towards the house where he’d grown up, John thought about just heading back to Baker Street. But there were things that had to be done in the morning [all of which was going to fall on him, clearly] and everything could be handled more easily from here. In any event, it seemed like something of a small private tribute to spend this night in the place where his mother had lived for so long. Sentiment was his downfall, as always.

Of course, a small part of him also realised that he did not really want to be on his own at Baker Street at the moment. It would just feel very lonely.

As he walked up the path to the front door, he wondered when this house had stopped being Home. Not when he went to uni or into the army, because it was always to here that he returned on school breaks or military leave. Except after he was shot. Then he did not come here. Even if he had wanted that, he doubted that Sherlock would have allowed it. They needed to be together once he’d left hospital and they both knew it. The day he stepped over the threshold of 221B Baker Street with Sherlock, John Watson knew immediately that he was, at last, home again. It had been a long road getting there.

Inside, this house now felt much smaller than it once had. John made himself a cup of strong tea, although he knew it wasn’t a good idea so late at night. He was exhausted, though, and did not think that one cup of tea would keep him awake. Three days [and nights] of running around Edinburgh in pursuit of a serial killer, then two days at his mother’s bedside, had left him with very few resources to call upon.

So, tea.

Sherlock always maintained that John thought tea was the answer to everything.

He carried the mug upstairs to his old room and sat on the bed, which was still rumpled from the few hours of restless sleep he’d managed on the first night. After a moment, he reached over and plucked a few books from the tidy shelf, which Mum had obviously kept dusted. One of the books immediately made him smile. ALL ABOUT PIRATES. Opening the front cover, he ran a finger over the carefully printed words: Property of Sherlock Holmes. Underneath that was the slightly less tidy addition of the words And John H.Watson.

Six-year-old Sherlock had insisted on the joint ownership. As he looked at the two signatures, John felt slightly amazed that it had taken so long for them both to realise completely their feelings. Those two little boys loved one another almost from day one. Sadly, they grew up and got stupid.

John leaned back against the wall and started to read as he sipped the tea. He was about halfway through the book by the time his phone rang. “Hi,” he said.

“John. Are you alright?” Few people would have believed the warm tone of concern in Sherlock’s voice. Of course, how many people had actually heard it?

“I’m fine. Really.”

“I should be there with you,” Sherlock fretted.

“No, you should be exactly where you are, catching that bastard before he kills another child.”

“Oh, he’s in custody.”

John sighed in relief. “You solved it.”

“I did. Despite the assistance of Edinburgh’s finest. So I’ll be on the first train back in the morning.”

Immediately, John’s mood lightened. “Good, I’ll be glad to see you.”

“No more than I will be to see you.” Sherlock’s voice revealed his exhaustion, although no one but John would have heard it.

There was a pause. Not an awkward one, however. It was only a warm moment of silence that said as much as any words would have done.

“I’m just having a cuppa,” John said then. “And reading.”

Sherlock sighed deeply. “Oh, wish I was drinking your tea. This stuff at the hotel is dreadful.”

It was probably fine tea, but John knew how Sherlock was. “I’ve spoiled you,” he teased gently.

“Indeed you have. What are you reading?”

“Can’t you deduce it?”

Sherlock gave a soft chuckle. “Knowing your persistent sentimentality, it is no doubt something from your childhood.”

“Obvious,” John took far too much pleasure in saying.

“Hah.” 

He could hear Sherlock stretching out on the hotel bed and took a moment to picture the scene. It made him smile.

“I imagine it is a certain volume about the scourge of the seas.”

“You imagine correctly. I was just renewing my acquaintance with Blackbeard.”

“Ah, one of my favorites. Sometimes I still wish we had run away to sea, John, and become pirates.”

“We would have conquered the world.” After another moment, John closed the book and set it aside. He exhaled heavily.

“You should sleep,” Sherlock said.

“Yeah. I’ll try. You, too.”

“Again, you’ve spoilt me over the last five years. Sleeping alone no longer suits me.”

John blinked a bit. He put the empty cup down carefully onto the bedside table and stretched out as well, kicking off his shoes. “Tell me about the end of the case,” he said, closing his eyes.

So Sherlock began to talk and the so-familiar sound of his voice, the deep and almost musical echo of Home, relaxed John until he was practically asleep by the time the recounting ended with the usual flourish. “Brilliant, Sherlock,” he managed to mumble. “Night. Love you.”

“Sleep well, John.”

Two phones went quiet at the same moment.

***


End file.
